Ramen Breakdown

I’m not a college student who’s upset because I don’t have enough money to buy more ramen at the grocery store. I’m a college professor and cooking teacher who has wondered for several decades about what happens to the edible food-like substances we stuff in our pie-hole. Notice I didn’t say the word “food” but used Michael Pollan’s noun for stuff we eat that’s not really food.

Each food found or grown in nature has a means of being utilized by our body. Animal and vegetable proteins are used for growth and repair; natural fats transport fat-soluble vitamins, create cell membranes as well as keep our skin and hair moist and healthy. Carbohydrates are used to create muscle energy. But what happens when we consume something like caramel coloring? This is not something that can be used for energy or growth. It is a colloid made by adding acetic acid (or other acids) to sugars and starches with an electrical charge whose color comes from FD&C Red Dye #40. What’s that used for? Is it discarded? Stored in the liver? What happens when day after day this dye needs to be discarded or stored in the liver? Is there a consequence?

We are painfully learning that the long-term effects may not be benign. As we enter the third generation of replacing many homemade natural foods with food-like substances made in factories our health as a nation is reflecting the carelessness.

But there are way more than a thousand points of light today leading the way back to eating real food. More and more research reveals that the wholeness and naturalness of food can’t be replicated in a processing plant. We’re not that clever. Here is some delightful evidence.

In this Tedx talk, artist Stefani Bardin, shows us her latest project — using a “smartpill” to reveal how we digest differently processed foods. The college student shouldn’t breakdown when he can’t afford ramen because the ramen doesn’t breakdown either. Watch.